Sunday, February 3, 2013

Mexican rescue workers found three more bodies over the weekend amid the rubble of a deadly blast that tore through state oil firm Pemex's main office complex, the government said, as search efforts appeared to near a close.

The death toll from Thursday's explosion stands at 36, Pemex said via Twitter. Rescue workers had been digging through the last sections of the building's basement and could soon call off their search. One person was reported still missing.

The head of Germany's opposition Social Democrats (SPD) criticized government plans to cap power price rises for consumers but signaled on Saturday he was open to talks.

Conservative environment minister Peter Altmaier last week outlined proposals to spread the cost of Germany's switch to renewables away from nuclear power between households and industry before September's election.

Spain's opposition Socialist Party called yesterday for the resignation of the Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, over a corruption scandal as a poll showed the lowest support on record for his centre-right People's Party (PP).

Media reports over the past two weeks have alleged that at least a dozen senior PP officials, including Mr Rajoy, received payments from a slush fund operated by its former treasurer. Mr Rajoy denies wrongdoing, but the scandal has provoked fury among Spaniards already disenchanted by deep recession and high unemployment.

Britain is storing an "extraordinary accumulation of hazardous nuclear waste" in "outdated facilities" which will cost nearly £70bn to clean up, MPs have warned the Government.

Almost all of the major nuclear-decommissioning projects at the Sellafield complex in Cumbria are behind schedule and many of them are over-budget according to a Parliamentary inquiry into Britain’s “failing” nuclear-reprocessing industry.

As a child, Lee Yoon Jung used to hide underground with her classmates when the sirens rang at her school. The emergency drills were held in case of a North Korean attack.

Lee, now 46, has children of her own, who do not have such exercises at their schools in Ulsan, South Korea.

It represents the attitude shift over recent decades of tension between the two Koreas. South Koreans have become accustomed to living next to their northern neighbor, which often releases bellicose statements and calls it a "group of puppet traitors."

Hopes for progress in Syria were raised after Russia's FM Sergey Lavrov met with the leader of the main opposition group. But peace is impossible while other governments are influencing the conflict, political analyst Marcus Papadopoulos told RT.

While addressing the Munich Security Conference Lavrov explained that despite the worsening situation in the region, peace is still within reach and the war in Syria “could be over if all sides stuck honestly and loyally to the principles of the June 30 Geneva conference.”

On the sidelines of the conference, Lavrov met for the first time with Syrian opposition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib. The meeting was closed to the media.

Tens of thousands of children who live abroad but receive benefits claimed by immigrant families in Britain are costing British taxpayers more than £1m a week, campaigners claim.

The research by Migration Watch UK comes after the Government admitted just under 30,000 families are claiming benefits and tax credit for 50,000 children who live outside the UK but within the European Union (EU), as well as Iceland and Norway.

A most-wanted list of high-risk foreign criminals believed to be hiding in Britain - including three suspected murderers and an accused rapist - has been released.

The list of 17 criminals wanted by authorities in other European countries who are thought to be in the UK has been unveiled by Scotland Yard and Crimestoppers.

It is the third Operation Sunfire campaign and includes the search for 32-year-old Dritan Rexhepi, who is wanted over a double murder in Albania and has links to London, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire.

North Korea has virtually finished preparations for nuclear tests in two tunnels at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in North Hamgyong Province, observers believe.

A South Korean government source said analysis of satellite images showed brisk activity of support vehicles and personnel at a tunnel on the southern side of the test site, and on Saturday the area was cleaned and personnel left.

Intelligence agencies suspect that this means a nuclear test is imminent. Preparations at a tunnel on the western side of the site were apparently completed earlier.

The government here is now watching for the possibility of two separate nuclear tests either simultaneously or in quick succession.

A gunman barricaded in an underground bunker with a 5-year-old hostage is making the boy "as comfortable as possible," authorities said, as the standoff in southeastern Alabama entered its sixth day Sunday.

Police have said little about what, if any, demands have been made by the man who they say killed a school bus driver and grabbed the kindergartener Tuesday afternoon before holing up in the bunker in Midland City.

Allegations that Chinese hackers infiltrated the computers of two leading U.S. newspapers add to a growing number of cyber attacks on Western companies, governments and foreign-based dissidents that are believed to originate in China, experts say.

According to one recent report, one in every three observed computer attacks in the third quarter of 2012 emanated from China.

NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong-un has chaired a high-level meeting that discussed a looming "great turn" in military capability, state media say, fuelling expectations of an imminent nuclear test.

Mr Kim made a "historic" speech at the ruling party's Central Military Commission meeting, attended by the heads of the army, the National Defence Commission and the strategic rocket force, the official Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday.

The meeting discussed "bringing about a great turn in bolstering military capability", said KCNA, which gave no date or details of Mr Kim's speech.

Graphic footage of a naked Egyptian man being dragged across a street and beaten by at least eight riot policemen during a protest in Cairo on Friday night has intensifed popular fury at President Mohamed Morsi and sparked calls from Egypt's opposition for "an end to this regime of tyranny".

The video shows Hamada Saber, reportedly a 50-year-old unemployed labourer, lying on the ground outside the presidential palace in north-east Cairo, with his trousers around his ankles, being beaten with batons and fists before being dragged into a police van.

Syria's opposition leader flew back to his Cairo headquarters from Germany on Sunday to explain to skeptical allies his decision to talk with President Bashar al-Assad's main backers Russia and Iran, in hope of a breakthrough in the crisis.

The Russian and Iranian foreign ministers, and U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, portrayed Syrian National Coalition leader Moaz Alkhatib's new willingness to talk with the Assad regime as a major step towards resolving the two-year-old war.

A fundraising campaign launched to support zero tolerance mall cop, Darien Long, pictured right, has so far raised almost $20,000. The security guard at Atlanta's Metro Mall hit the headlines this week when a film of him tasering an abusive mother, left, spread across the internet. Supporters have backed Long who they say is doing a good job trying to clean up downtown Atlanta.

The first pictures of the suicide bomber who attacked the U.S. Embassy in Ankara on Friday have emerged as Turkish officials identified him as convicted terrorist Ecevit Sanli.

Armed with six kilograms of TNT - enough to blow up a two-story building - and a hand grenade, Sanli, killed himself and a Turkish security guard in the brazen attack, which has been labelled an act of terror by U.S. officials.
As the U.S. flag flew at half-staff today and security at the embassy was heightened, details about the 40-year-old assailant emerged.

Sanli was not linked to al Qaeda, rather he was a member of the outlawed Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C. He had spent five years in prison on terrorism charges after he was arrested in 1997 for alleged involvement in attacks on two official buildings in Istanbul.

A medical examiner has ruled that a Georgia county commissioner who drowned near a boat dock after suffering a gunshot to the head committed suicide, the county coroner said Friday.

Police found the body of 52-year-old Glynn County Commissioner Tom Sublett early on Dec. 11 in the water beside a docked boat on St. Simons Island.

His wallet was in his back pocket and still contained his driver's license and credit cards. An empty gun holster and a magazine loaded with 9mm bullets were found in Sublett's car nearby, but no gun was recovered.

Glynn County Coroner Jimmy Durden said in a telephone interview that the manner of death according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime lab in Savannah is going to be suicide.

An end to Britain’s ‘holiday camp’ jails, with a ban on Sky TV, fewer televisions, more prison uniforms, less pocket money for inmates and a ban on gay couples sharing cells is planned by the Government.

The return to ‘spartan’ jails marks the biggest prison regime shake-up for 60 years and is designed to signal a tough new approach to law and order by Justice Secretary Chris Grayling.

Mr Grayling believes prisoners do not deserve the kind of lifestyle and ‘frills’ that are beyond the reach of families on low wages.

A plan developed last summer by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-CIA Director David Petraeus to arm and train Syrian rebels was rebuffed by the White House, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

The United States has sent humanitarian aid to Syria but has declined requests for weapons by rebels fighting to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The United States is ready for direct talks with Iran if it is serious about negotiations, Vice President Joe Biden said on Saturday, backing bilateral contact many see as crucial to easing a dispute over Tehran's nuclear program.

Speaking at a security conference in Munich, Biden said Iran - which says it is enriching uranium for peaceful energy only - now faced "the most robust sanctions in history" meant to ensure it does not develop nuclear weapons.

The head of the Egyptian army, General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, has warned that continuing political strife is pushing the country to the brink of collapse. So can the newly-formed democracy, forged in the revolution two years ago, survive?

Leila, a teacher in her 40s, in a dark green headscarf, was one of many I talked to in Tahrir Square who was keen to give her views.

Why, I wondered, was she back here now, exactly two years since the revolution to oust President Mubarak began, calling for his successor to step down? Because nothing's changed, she told me.

It was supposed to be a remembrance rally, but as thousands packed Athens to honour three fallen heroes, the black-clad crowd of men in military fatigues and baseball caps crested with mangled swastikas, offered the grimmest reminder yet of Greece's tireless march to the far right.

Organised by Golden Dawn, which emerged from political obscurity here to win 7% of the national vote last June, last night's event showcased the group's biggest public gathering to date.